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June 2014 www.architectmagazine.com
THE MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS
The All-American 106 4 Ways to Diversify 118 ’Bots on the Jobsite 140Work by BIAD 240 SPF:a 250 5468796 258 Foster 266 Rojkind 274 Arets 285
THE 2014 AIA AWARDS
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FRONT22 CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE INNCARB has endorsed a potentially
transformative new path to licensure.
41 FRONTVeiling the Glass House, the COTE Top Ten, an
office building with a unique shading system,
the 9/11 Memorial Museum opens, photovoltaic
roads, fireproofing SFMOMA, and more …
67 AIARCHITECTApplied research, Chicago’s emerging architects,
the Windy City on the world’s stage, and
communicating the value of architecture.
CENTER106 MADE (MOSTLY) IN AMERICAKaren Lantz wanted to design her house using
only U.S.-manufactured products.
118 BUILDING NEW BUSINESSArchitects would be wise to embrace these four
emerging design fields.
122 HALLOWED COFFERSAt this Mumbai airport, Skidmore, Owings &
Merrill crafted a mega-puzzle of custom panels.
126 DOING GOOD BY DESIGNThis selection of products is both socially and
environmentally responsible.
134 THE DNA OF DIGITAL CRAFTAlvin Huang merges applied research from the
classroom with real-world problem-solving.
140 BATTLE OF THE ’BOTSDevelopers of construction robots are prepping
for an automated future.
150 AN ARTFUL FAÇADEFor Pablo Bronstein, the avant-garde has become
so institutionalized that history seems radical.
158 DAMAGE CONTROLDesigning above and beyond seismic building
codes can save lives and recovery costs.
BACK312 NURTURE VERSUS NATUREGreen walls have emerged as a way of covering
buildings, but this project offers a cautionary tale.
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A new breed of custom panel will clad Snøhetta’s SFMOMA expansion.
Synthesis Design + Architecture’s Pure Tension Volvo Pavilion.
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Text by Karrie Jacobs
MADE (MOSTLY) IN AMERICA
CRUISING SLOWLY UP BANKS, a narrow
residential street in Houston’s Museum
District, I’m trying to guess which house
belongs to architect Karen Lantz, AIA. Along
the way I find the typical Houston mix:
postwar ranch houses and their lot-filling
replacements, mostly McMansions loosely
modeled on Versailles. I’m momentarily
fooled by a big white modernist house, but
it’s too cool, too formulaic. I know I’m looking
for something more particular. Finally, I spot
a precise assemblage of boxy volumes that
looks—and this is a good thing—like it was
put together from a Kenner Building Set. The
exterior is marked by a xeriscape garden
instead of a lawn, a length of white vinyl fence
framed like a work of minimalist art, a solar
water heater astride the roof that resembles a
high-tech gable, and a light sculpture—a bright
cluster of LED bulbs—above the entrance.
Lantz, 40, designed the house—built
from the ground up and completed early
last year—for herself; her husband, a dentist
named Andrew Farkas; and their dog, Willa
The landscaping at Karen Lantz’s Houston house is irrigated using a below-ground water collection tank manufactured by Norwesco in St. Bonifacius, Minn.
KAREN LANTZ WANTED TO DESIGN HER HOUSE USING ONLY U.S.-MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS. MINUS THE SOLAR PANELS (AND A FEW OTHER THINGS), HER PROJECT IS A BLUEPRINT FOR LOCAL SOURCING.
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Ground-Level Plan
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Wonka, a labradoodle. Her first project of note,
it is as packed with ideas as an ambitious
debut novel. In this case, the ideas are mostly
about the economic and ecological impact
of materials and products, where they’re
made and how they’re sourced. Like many
creative professionals lately, Lantz thinks it’s
economically and culturally significant to
support local manufacturers, much in the way
we now support local food producers. More than
just follow the LEED for Homes Checklist, Lantz
attempted (and largely succeeded) in building
and furnishing the house with materials and
products manufactured in the United States—
no mean feat. And unlike many concept-driven
projects, hers is a testament to the fact that you
can be highly conscientious without sacrificing
the visual side of design.
ON A TOUR OF THE HOUSE, Lantz was quick to
tell me that she didn’t grow up with a lot of
money. She was raised in Pasadena, Texas, a
working-class suburb of Houston, and married
her high school sweetheart. “His dad worked at
NASA and my dad worked at Armco steel [now
AK Steel] . We both went to junior college and I
went on to architecture school at the University
of Houston.”
Fourteen years ago, the couple bought the
1950s ranch house that originally sat on the
property and rented it out. They also bought
a second house by the Texas Medical Center
and lived in it. Both properties increased
dramatically in value and helped them finance
the new 3,600-square-foot house that Lantz
estimates cost roughly $250 a square foot.
Originally, Lantz’s plan was simply to
design a house good enough to liberate her
from a professional holding pattern she refers
to as “renovation hell.” But in 2009, as she
demolished the old house that sat on the lot
(diligently finding new users for the materials),
she found herself preoccupied by the recession.
“My friends were losing their jobs. I felt like
there’s something very wrong with that. Why
are those factories closing?” At appliance
showrooms, salesmen offered her discounts
for German-made appliances. Lantz was
appreciative: “I was calling in every discount I
could get.” But she began to resent the fact that
she was “being directed toward products that
weren’t manufactured here.”
LEED’s system (Lantz anticipates that
the house will be certified LEED Platinum)
awards points for sourcing goods from within
a 500-mile radius, but no major appliances
are manufactured that close to Houston. Lantz
decided that, beyond the carbon generated
by transporting goods, there was another
important issue: American manufacturing.
She eventually found an attractive, European-
Second-Level Plan
1. Roof terrace2. Bedroom3. Study4. Closet5. Bathroom6. Carport7. Kitchen8. Dining room9. Living room10. Entry11. Porch12. Pool13. North garden14. Courtyard15. Wine cellar16. Mechanical17. Media room
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inspired line from Sub-Zero. “I was so excited
that we were producing them in Madison, Wis.,”
she says. And suddenly, Lantz’s design process
had a focus: “It became a mission about finding
the best-looking American products.”
Lantz began an extended scavenger hunt
that turned up Corian, the once-ubiquitous
white surfacing material, which DuPont makes
in Buffalo, N.Y. She found kitchen accessories
fabricated by Waterstone Faucets in Murrieta,
Calif., and Uplift medicine cabinets with
doors that slide vertically from Bristol, Pa.,
manufacturer Robern. From her home state,
she sourced metal roofing material from San
Antonio, soy-foam insulation from Arlington,
and coated glass from Waxahachie. Houston
companies yielded a steam therapy shower
for the master bathroom, insulated windows,
and terrazzo flooring. Bob Bertin of American
Marble Mosaic Co., a third-generation terrazzo
man, was especially supportive of her mission.
“I said, ‘Bob, I really want to know where
everything comes from.’ ” He obligingly hand-
wrote a sourcing list for every last bit of gravel.
For some things, Lantz simply couldn’t
find U.S. producers. While her decision to use
an Italian-made sink in the powder room was a
stylistic whim, the fact that she felt compelled
to install a German-made solar hot-water
heater and a thin-film solar array produced in
China suggests that we’re behind the curve on
these crucial technologies: “There are American
companies making solar panels, just not the
beautiful thin-film ones I was looking for,” says
Lantz. “There are domestic solar hot-water
systems, but the sources I found were not to the
standards of the European companies.”
It isn’t just the sourcing of the materials
that’s significant. Everything in the house
invites the eye and the hand. For the most
part, Lantz says “the materials dictated the
aesthetic,” although she was clearly influenced
by midcentury modern design. Indeed, her
living room exudes Case Study House, with
reupholstered vintage club chairs and sofa
against a warm backdrop of Texas limestone. A
round hanging lamp that could be a Noguchi
is actually a piece by California artist Russell
Crotty. And then there’s a zigzag ceiling, an
innovation intended to modulate the room’s
acoustics, which Lantz borrowed from a Madrid
restaurant designed by Spanish architect
Francisco Mangado, Hon. FAIA.
One of the more unconventional material
decisions Lantz made is only visible in key
spots—for instance, where the staircase to the
second floor rests on one of the steel beams
(milled in the U.S., of course) that supports
the house. “My dad made steel,” Lantz says.
“His company sent steel to New York for the
[original] World Trade towers. I had the feeling
1. Wine cellar by USA Cellar Systems (made outside the U.S. but assembled in Long Beach, Calif.).2. Texas limestone from Aguado Stone in Georgetown, Texas.3. Terrazzo flooring by American Marble Mosaic Co. in Houston.4. Second-story glass floor by Innovative Building Products in Denton, Texas.5. Green glass fiberglass-faced gypsum board for zig-zag ceiling by Temple-Inland in McQueeney, Texas.
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1. Hunley faucet by Waterstone Faucets in Murrieta, Calif.2. E Series built-in double ovens and framed induction/gas multifunction cooktop by Wolf in Fitchburg and Madison, Wis.3. Aluminum doors by Fleetwood in Corona, Calif.4. Haiku ceiling fan by Big Ass Fans in Lexington, Ky.5. Countertops by DuPont Corian in Buffalo, N.Y.6. Duradek fiberglass grating by Strongwell in Chatfield, Minn.
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1. Texas limestone from Aguado Stone in Georgetown, Texas.2. Grout for Texas limestone by Spectrum Cement in Alvin, Texas.3. Shower-door glass by Cristacurva in Houston.4. Teak shower seat by MTI Baths in Sugar Hill, Ga.
that if I used steel he would love that.” Her
father, she adds, didn’t live to see the house
completed.
IN SOME WAYS, Lantz’s first house is a typical
career move: “As an architect,” she says,
designing your own home is “the moment to
make your statement.” But the statement she’s
making is not just about her own abilities. It’s
more about how the architectural profession
could help boost the manufacturing sector.
Industrial employment in the U.S., which
bottomed out in early 2010 after decades
of decline, has started to creep up again,
according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Similarly, the Institute for Supply Management
shows a consistent uptick over the last year
in manufacturing activity. But economic
experts disagree about whether the indicators
demonstrate that industry is simply recovering
from the recession or whether “reshoring”—the
return of manufacturing jobs to the U.S.—is
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actually happening. For her part, Lantz says,
“I wish that I could influence architects that do
big buildings to use the principles of this tiny
project. I would like it to be cool to say, ‘I got my
material locally.’ ”
What’s more, she hopes her project helps
change the architectural character of her
hometown. “Houston is such a conservative city
architecturally. We’re always making houses
that seem like they’re from someplace else. I
hope that this house seems like it’s from here.”
1. Metal roof by Berridge in Houston and San Antonio, Texas.2. Coated neat glass Cardinal in Waxahatchie, Texas.3. Steel beam by New York Steel USA.4. Washed terrazzo by American Marble Mosaic Co. in Houston. 5. Aluminum metal baseboards and reveals by Fry Reglet in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., and Alpharetta, Ga.
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